Battered Hearts Beat For No One
by SolariaLunar21
Summary: Post-513 world where a local sculptor tells his story of meeting and falling in unrequited love with Justin Taylor who doesn't see him as anything more and neglects to mention one Brian Kinney and the fact there's no hope they'll be anything more.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the characters except for the narrator of this story. All others belong to CowLip & Showtime. Any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental and not meant to be intentional by the author. Copyright infringement is not intended.

You meet Justin Taylor in January 2006 he's been in the city three months and you've been here since you stepped off a plane from California two years ago fresh out of college and decided to try and make a name for yourself in the Big Apple. He lives with your best friend Maria but you haven't met him before then because you've been busy with work, your first big commission, and a promise that if you can get together a few more pieces you'll be considered for a spot in an upcoming show at a gallery exclusively for up and coming local sculptors. Finally you catch a breath and meet Maria for drinks down at the dingy bar on the corner of the street where your studio is and she's dragged along her new roommate. Turns out he's a painter here to do what you've come to do as well and you tell him about the studio space that's open down the hall from your own.

Two days later he's moving art supplies into the building and it doesn't take long after that for the two of you to become friends. Justin's different from a lot of the people in the art scene that you've met and you appreciate the fresh air he brings to your world. You grab sporadic dinners and lunches and sometimes even breakfast together and he talks about painting and you talk about sculpting. Two weeks after you meet is the first time you go to a club together and watch as the men swarm to Justin like moths to a flame. He's sensual and breathtaking as the lights flash brilliantly on his golden hair and you wish you had clay with you right now to mold this scene because it would be one of the most beautiful pieces you've ever created. And it comes to no surprise to you when by the end of February you realize you've fallen head over heels in love with the painter. You don't say anything because you've had your heartbroken one to many times in the past so it's better to just keep quiet and wait to see if the feelings could possibly be mutual.

Justin though is still a bit of an enigma to you and you wish desperately that you could figure him out. At least two weekends a month he disappears from the studio and you don't hear from him at all. After those weekends he locks himself in his studio and paints for hours at a time and you usually have to force him to take a break to eat before he gets back to his work. You don't often see the pieces he produces from this time in finished form but one time when you go to drag him to the deli across the street he's just finished a painting and the feeling's it evokes in you make you fall just that little bit more in love with him. Of course over meals the two of you talk, you talk about California and discovering your love for sculpting when you were thirteen and he talks about how he can't remember a time when he's never been compelled to draw or paint. He talks about Pittsburgh occasionally; about his mother, his best friend Daphne, about PIFA and you're surprised to hear he never graduated but got suspended once before returning and dropping out again three months later. Sometimes when he talks about Pittsburgh he pauses and fingers a bracelet he wears on his wrist made out of black cord and cowrie shells. You don't know what it means and the bracelet doesn't really fit the rest of what you know about him so it remains an enigma just like Justin.

In mid-March you two are out on one of the rare nights you both make it out to the clubs the first time that you dance together. He's flying high on some E he brought with him and you make sure he drinks water but the whole time that the two of you dance you can feel all eyes on you. It's a different feeling to know that men are staring at _you _because they want what you have and it gives you a secret thrill. You've come to notice though that Justin dances with anyone who crosses his path (so it doesn't mean anything that he chose you that night even though you wish it did), but when guys try to kiss him he turns away. It's something you want to ask about because you've seen him in the backroom as well, he brings a trick back with him and either turns them around to face the wall or they go immediately to their knees to suck him off. Never once does Justin's mouth touch another, and the one time that a trick does manage to sneak a kiss from his lips you watch as Justin furiously wipes his mouth and twists the guys arm around and whispers low in his ear something you can't hear. That night is when you ask him why he doesn't kiss them.

"Why don't you kiss tricks?" slips out of your mouth and you watch as he pauses fork full of post-clubbing scrambled eggs halfway to his mouth before he looks you dead in the eye and gives an answer.

"I don't want to, kissing implies intimacy and tricks aren't intimate they're just tricks." Then he averts his gaze eats his eggs and fingers the bracelet on his wrist. You want to push for more want to know if he'd consider more with a trick to see if you have a fighting chance yourself for more but the words get stuck in your throat. From then on you stop kissing tricks as well and you tell yourself it isn't because of Justin (but you know it is).

March slides into April and with it the news that Justin is having his first showing in a small but well known art gallery as part of an Emerging Artists show scheduled to open in early June. He knocks on your studio door to share the news and you tell him this calls for celebratory Dim Sum as you go to get your coat but he stops you and looks a little awkward when he tells you he already has plans tonight but you can do something Tuesday. You don't hear from him again until he appears on Monday around noon and you notice a hickey on his collarbone when the shirt he uses to paint in slips down just a little. It's always puzzled you why he paints in what looks to be an expensive button down shirt at least two sizes to big but you've never gotten around to asking. After that you get a another commission and Justin's busy with preparations for his show but it doesn't stop you from noticing that he dims a little and gets a little testy when the month of May hits. He snaps at you when you ask if he's ok and then disappears for eight days that you spend trying not to worry about him and when he comes back his hair is highlighted by the sun and a weariness that you never noticed was always about his being is gone completely.

During the next two weeks he smiles and laughs a little more and you notice his hand play more with the bracelet except when he does it's with a smile that wasn't there before. You notice his hand drifts towards his neck a lot as well and you realize he has a necklace on that wasn't there before but you don't know what's on the end that he strokes through his shirt every so often.

You end up meeting Brian Kinney on the first of June four days before the show Justin is a part of starts. The two of you are eating take out from the Indian place three building's down in Justin's studio when the door slides open and one of most breathtaking men you've ever seen walks through the door. You watch as Justin's eyes light up and he abandons his food for a moment to greet the man with an enthusiastic kiss.

"Sunshine aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?" The man asks when Justin's pulled away and Justin blushes but introduces you two anyways.

"Nate this is my fiancé Brian Kinney, Brian this is the guy I've told you about the sculptor Nate Parkinson." You stay for a few more moments after that exchanging pleasantries but leave to give Justin and his _fiancé _time to themselves. The next day Justin comes to your studio and sits down as he watches you for a few moments and then starts speaking.

"I'm sorry I never told you about Brian." He says and you look up from your work and catch his eyes before looking away again but not before noticing that there's now a circle of platinum adorning his left ring finger that wasn't there just the day before (later you will realize that this is what was on the necklace).

"Nothing to be sorry about." You reply.

"Yes there is." He says and the seriousness of his tone makes you look him in the eyes and you realize he knows and you might as well bash your heart to pieces and ask what you want to know and have been wondering since the moment Brian arrived last night.

"How long have you two been together?" You ask and he blows out a small breath before seeming to compose himself to answer the question. As he does you notice he plays with the bracelet on his wrist and realize it must be a gift from Brian or maybe it was Brian's in the first place, but it's not something you want to know about anymore.

"Six years give or take a few months. We were engaged last fall but then the Art Forum article came out that I told you about and we decided it would be best if I came to New York. We called off the wedding but not our relationship, we just weren't engaged anymore. The weekends I disappear I'm either in Pittsburgh or he's come up here."

"So what you've been cheating on him? He obviously doesn't know if you're engaged again."

"Tricks are allowed as long as it's not twice and kissing them isn't allowed. There are other parameters too it but those are the major ones that if they were broken on multiple occasions would be considered cheating." He replies with a shrug and you want to ask more but aren't sure if you're allowed too but you decide to hell with it you've already lost that bit of hope you had anyways.

"So why'd you get engaged again? I mean if it didn't work last time why less than a year later do it all over?" You know that it's said a little rudely but you can't help it, he just broke your heart you're entitled to be a little bitchy.

"We had a fight at the end of April and then we weren't talking, that's part of the reason I was so on edge, and then he flew in for his normal visit and we talked things out then surprised me with a trip to Italy and while we were there we talked more about why the fight happened in the first place. Then we sort of mutually decided to get engaged again but that we'd wait to have a ceremony until I felt that I could professionally maintain my career and live in Pittsburgh or he felt that his business could withhold opening another office in New York."

"Well congratulations then." You say hoping it doesn't sound as strained to his ears as it does yours.

"Thanks Nate, I understand if you don't want to hang out for a little while and I'm sorry if I was leading you on I didn't mean to and I should've said something earlier." You don't really know what to say to that so you just nod and Justin must take that as a signal to leave and he does. That night you go out and you dance and you kiss someone for the first time in months and you start to mend your broken battered heart and hope one day it will beat again.


End file.
